The Republicans’ Alternate Universe Is About To Collide With Reality
Much has been written in recent months about the alternate universe in which many Republicans live. It is a universe populated not by hard facts, empirical knowledge and an understanding of economics and history, but by a denial of reality.
With the federal debt crisis on center stage, these realities in particular present themselves:
* The crisis is a direct result of the profligacy of the Bush era, notably the billions of dollars spent on the Iraq war hard on the heels of a tax cut for the wealthy.
* The very Republican leaders whose intransigence has fueled the crisis, notably Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, supported the war and voted for the tax cuts.
* The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office this week found that the House Republican debt plan fell short of its projected savings while the Democratic Senate plan met its projected savings.
The Republican response when confronted with these realities is not surprising, but nevertheless still astounding:
* President Obama is to blame for the deficit crisis.
* Who voted for or supported what in 2002 and 2003 has no bearing on 2011.
* The Congressional Budget Office is coming up with numbers “out of thin air.”
You don’t have to be a rocket scientist, yet alone a Wharton School graduate, to see what will happen next:
The Republicans will have to bow to reality and compromise or blow whatever slim chance they have of taking back the Senate and White House in 2012. A failure to do so will come down on them like a ton of bricks when elderly and infirm voters start going to mailboxes to get their government checks and find nothing there.
19 Responses to “The Republicans’ Alternate Universe Is About To Collide With Reality”
Reality will collapse onto itself and become a black hole that will destroy the US and the global economy.
Welcome to the next civil war, it will make the last one look like a walk in the park…
It is fascinating to see how some from the so-called “peace movement” are so eager for “the next civil war”.
Turns out all that talk about civility and non-violence was easily disposed once they get mad about something.
I suspect many lefties are angry that their true alternative universe has collided with reality — in witnessing Obama concede to reality after the 2010 elections.
What are these people going to do in the 2020s when the money runs out, and overdue rationalization of government happens?
[gasp]
Shorter Logan:
You don’t agree with me and are mean to Republicans, so waaaaahhhhh.
Shorter DLS:
Deficits must always be cut under Democratic presidents. Republicans, not so much.
Some of us believe that we live in a country composed of 300 million atomized individuals who can be made to fight like crabs in a bucket to escape the cooking pot, others believe that we live in a multi-ethnic state composed of a few hundred ethno-religious groups who will band together to protect themselves and what they have.
When the Right kills the Welfare State, get ready for a few hundred Hezbollah like group to take the place of the Welfare State.
Our eventual financial collapse is all but written in stone (except for the date), following a long, impressive line of countries that have done the same, many of which survived the ordeal.
The predictions of Armageddon on August 2nd, not so much.
Bub Snikt: Wrong — I’ve criticized conservatives and the GOP often. That is not true with so many liberals here who loathe the Right, have done nothing like what you say. Real alternative universe?
What are y’all going to do when the money runs out by the 2020s?
Q.F.: The problem remains as usual, not atomization but collectivism. No doubt you appreciate the federal excess we have…
Boy you sure don’t hear “conservatives” talk anymore about that horribly expensive unfunded war of choice – that just happened to go hand in hand with huge tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans. Funny how that works eh? OK, back to the selective amnesia…
(DLS, it is true that you sometimes criticize the GOP, but any regular reader here – as well as yourself, must admit the ratio is very lopsided – and that’s fine btw, just don’t try to pass yourself off as an equal opportunity basher.)
Selective amnesia is bipartisan (see, e.g., progressives’ opposition to the filibuster than they cherished in 2005), but more to the point I would suspect that part of their refusal to talk endlessly about “horribly expensive unfunded war of choice” is (1) they don’t agree with your premise and (2) it is irrelevant to the current debate.
Even if every dime spent on Afghanistan and Iraq were not spent, we would still have a huge $1T+ deficit and a looming crisis in entitlement programs.
I actually think slowly both sides at least on this thread ARE agreeing in many ways through the scuffle.
The Bush tax cuts were a monumental error.
Iraq should have never happened and if it did we needed to raise taxes to fund it.
We need to raise revenue.
We badly need to cut spending, hence why a 3 to 1 or possibly up to 5 to 1 split is good. Keep in mind that certain spending was created only for the recession spending which is why Reid is so complaint on cuts and only the crazies want 0 cuts.
Entitlements need to be fixed twenty years ago. That means NOT putting it in the free market but instead merely tinkering with most of it around the edges to resolve the issues. Raising FICA, uncapping, possible means testing, possible age changes and possibly even using the market share to negotiate better drug prices.
If we did all of the above things we would have a nice surplus to save for the next rainy day in 10-20 years PLUS the entitlements would be solvent and then we could truly lower taxes and be able to afford it while being fiscally responsible. Pipe dream in our political system BUT I wanted to note the major areas that many seem to agree on.
“We badly need to cut spending”
You also badly need to have a recovery so you can actually solve long-term spending problems. If you are serious about long-term spending, you will not demand much short-term spending.
You can wait with cutting spending and be able to do it properly, or you can act like panicked children who don’t think for yourselves, do it now now now because JENNIFER RUBIN SAID and then not be able to do it properly.
Do as I say and suffer less, don’t do as I say and suffer more. I just love situations like this…
I’m equitable. You seem not to realize that the distribution of incorrectness, wrongfulness, and things pathological happens now (probably in the future, too) to be asymmetric.
* * *
Yes, spending is the problem and 3:1 cuts to tax increases is a good minimum proportion, if not 5:1 or more.
“Tinkering around the edges” won’t repair or rescue the entitlements; they’re unsustainable in part because they’re fundamentally flawed. We can’t fix some things (I believe 2005 was our last good chance to convert from pay-as-you-go to full funding, though part of a stimulus might have included part if not all of this, if the stimulators had been especially smart, the opposite of which we know they were). Not only entitlements but the modern welfare state will be wrecked by demographics. When the money runs out, only then will the philosophy be corrected — only when the demographics force people to do it.
Once more:
http://www.twq.com/02spring/hewitt.pdf
And also once more, an example of forethought about applying overdue reason to federalism and what’s expected from whom:
(She’s a liberal, people — no closed-minded pre-rejection, please)
http://www.city-journal.org/article01.php?aid=1142
All the remedies you recommend for the entitlements are good (I know, because I’ve recommended them myself, all but the drug monopsony item — it’ll come with Medicare for All, don’t worry), but aren’t “tinkering,” not by any means. (Just ask any liberal.)
Real Keynesianism, higher taxes and less government spending, and a surplus put into a reserve during boom times, that is used to increase government spending while taxes are lowered (and deficits possibly run) during bust times, is wonderful in theory, but can’t happen here. Those in power cannot be trusted to do it.
Austerity eventually is coming in some form, and our economy will get uglier with population aging, notably uglier.
(There’s no need to re-link to the story of New York’s liberal bankruptcy in 1975, because reality forces to go the other way.)
Spence and Sky, enjoy the reply (and recognize humor where it is).
Absalon-I would note that I do not think deep immediate cuts are wise and I would say that regardless of the economic situation. Deep cuts fast = unemployment and lost business investment. With the largest employer in the nation AND the largest consumer in the world (the US) that is just reality. We are instead talking of a 10 year window which is more than enough time to ramp things down and still benefit from cuts that are dearly needed while avoiding stupid shocks to the economy. Still 1b in immediate cuts is far from enough.
DLS-I agree what I call tinkering many that want a hands off approach would consider draconian. Of course to those that want them nuked or privatized it would be considered “tinkering.”
I’d like to think that the nukers would admit that the changes you (and I) propose are more substantial. (It’s details like raising the retirement age to only 67, or the even more risible doing so by 2075, that can be derided as gimmicky tinkering, mere flirting with reform. Of course, such in Europe results in general strikes and riots.)
Does anyone think republicans are interested in making effective, good-faith entitlement reform? Reform is meant to allow as much effect (people helped) for lower costs (means testing, removing administrative costs) but how will such programs be proposed by people who think the very idea is illegitimate?
The one party that tried starting to fix entitlement spending got hounded for it.
Axel wrote:
No kidding (Bush, Social Security, 2005). Then as now the Dems were mindless, lying about the state of entitlements and the need sometime to reform them.
“Does anyone think republicans are interested in making effective, good-faith entitlement reform?”
Does anyone think republicans are interested in making effective, good-faith anything?